Gross mortgage lending of £4.2 billion across 33,500 mortgages was advanced to buy-to-let landlords in the first quarter of 2013, according to latest survey data from the Council of Mortgage Lenders.

This compares with £4.6 billion the previous quarter, and £3.7 billion in the first quarter of last year.

Nearly half of this lending was for remortgage, rather than house purchase. Nevertheless, the buy-to-let sector continued to grow, and loan performance improved.

By the end of March buy-to-let lending accounted for 13.4% of total outstanding mortgage lending in the UK – up from 13% the previous quarter and 12.9% at the end of the first quarter of 2012.

There are now around 1.46 million buy-to-let mortgages in the UK, accounting for around 13% of the total estimated stock of 11.26 million mortgages.

Of all mortgages in arrears of over three months, only 8.3% were buy-to-let (down from 9.0% the previous quarter and 10.5% in the first quarter of last year). The possession rate, at 0.11%, was higher in the buy-to-let sector than the 0.07% in the owner-occupied sector, but fell from its previous quarterly rate of 0.12%.